Results of the Junior World Championship in Suwa, Japan

Friends Gather on the Green for Boule

Many familiar faces - and experienced petanquers at the Bastille Day picnic. We quickly grouped into a triplette - waiting our turn for access tot he piste, and then played a pretty close match. Michel/Jeff/Denise played against James/Cheryl/Hal.

Petanque on the Grassy Knoll in Bloomfield Hills

Among the shade of tall trees, with the lilting sounds of French music and singing in the background, and guests looking on, petanque was played on the challenging surface of Carole Crosby's petanque piste at the Alliance Francaise's Bastille Day picnic.

It didn't take very long after setting up the stringed piste before players began to assemble. Due to playing in the grass, we used a Golf-chonnette (bright yellow golf ball) in lieu of a cochonnet - and the undulating surface presented challenges to both beginner and experience petanquers.

Ayayi "Ziggy" Kessouagni visits Detroit from Chicago

Ziggy (his nickname) and his wife April (and his daughters) visited Detroit this weekend and of course played some petanque. Here he's playing with April, James, Cheryl, Mike and Jeff in a triplette. I remember well how solidly he shoots, so we were extra careful in our pointing. The shade of Campus Martius Park, and the quiet setting, with a smaller fountain than Buckingham Fountain in Chicago, lent a "small village" air to the early afternoon.

Mamanry (from Philadelphia) called in from the Bastille Day petanque game playing in New York.

Ziggy was so excited about playing petanque in Detroit that he's likely to play in Royal Oak on Sunday (stay tuned).

Bastille Day - Alliance Francaise de Detroit

This past Saturday, author, linguist, and all around great guy Edward Chalom invited my wife and me to participate in the Bastille Day Picnic at the beautiful home of Alliance Francaise President, Carole Crosby's home in Bloomfield Hills.

Jeannette Lorente sang an assortment of French songs including the Marsaillase (of course!) and we partook of a delicious assortment of appetizers while playing petanque and socializing.

My wife Denise and I couldn't imagine a nicer way to spend a Saturday afternoon - especially for a Bastille Day afternon.

Mark & Blandine brought their Folks to Cadillac Square

Mark and Blandine ( of Preservation Wayne) brought their parents: Bob and Barb (and their own little petanquer baby) to the pistes of Cadillac Square to play some boule. Mike (Iron Mike) helped out, and we had a nice time playing in the shade of what was a very warm day.

Bastille Day at Albion, Michigan

My friend, Mark Anthony invited me to participate at French Day at the Albion summer camp. The day's program was organized by Ms. Mueller who had an assortment of French cultural activities planned, food, music, and of course, Petanque!

Mark and I taught 130 campers (ages 9-13) how to play petanque. A challenge - yes, but by implementing some of the tricks learned from my wife, Denise (who teaches K-5 kids) I had some ideas.

The first session (the older 13 year olds) included a mix of some students who were visiting from the South of France, so I was fortunate in having a few petanque coaches available to assist me. We broke up into a multitutde of triplettes and everyone enjoyed the friendly competition. The second session was composed of the younger campers 9 & 10 year olds - who are, by the way, more disciplined than the 13 year olds - they took to the rules of the game easily, and seemed to concentrate on the strategy of boule-play.

The day was a magnificent success, and ended nicely with a "thank you" gathering in the cafeteria - and a special gift of Pastis from Ms. Mueller who really put together a splendid day for us all.

Laguiole (pron. La-yoll) , the premier French knife originally made in a small village in the Aveyron region the South of France.

The Laguiole is an important part of the lives of the farmers in Aveyron as an every day companion.

The Laguiole knife carries cultural importance too. The sound made by the blade when one closes signified at the end of a meal that the head of the family had finished dinner and that the table could be cleaned. A boy received the Laguiole knife as a rite of passage and age and entrance into manhood, becoming a source of pride for any man. Even today, carving the traditional round bread with a circular cut of the knife has considerable ceremonial significance.

So, where can you get yours? HERE is the link.

For the 100th Year of petanque, OBUT has brought out their latest boule, the Nexius. The Obut Nexius is made from high-tech stainless steel, with granulated bronze which creates a tactile grip of the boule along with offering incredible anti-rebound qualities.

Diameters: 72-76 mm
Weights: 680-710 grams
No Striations
Space for 15 engraved characters

Price: (guess) 150 - 230€ (buffed napped leather bag, chamois cloth & wooden cochon included)

Henri Salvador VMS Boules

In 1995 Henri Salvador proposed his own version of top-of-the-range petanque boules VMS (S Salvador).

This splendid boule design resembles the Boules Cloutees (nailed boules of old) and has the advantage of an anti-rebound structure.

Players who own them claim they are a pleasure to play in competition - and they attract many second glances at such an unusual boule.

I'm not selling them, I just saw them listed on French EBAY

Price... 180 Euros (plus postage!)

This antique boule cabinet (about 7 feet high!) hails from Marseille where petanque is played constantly!

The price tag is $1850 - a bit steep, but I think an interested club could re-create it with some carpentry skills. The individually numbered doors (containing a deep boule "cubby") can be locked with individual padlocks; the upper and lower doors are larger spaces (presumably holding the pastis) and are lockable with a bolt lock.

It's nice to see the history of our sport displayed so formidably.

46th Annual Marseillaise (July 8th - 12th)

The 46^th annual Marseillaise will be played starting July 8^th and ending five days later. Last year, 4,112 teams (12,336 men and women composed into triplettes) competed in the direct elimination competition.

After five days of physical and mental testing, four teams find themselves in “le carré d'honneur” (the square of honor) to compete for the title most envied by the petanque player: World Champion of Petanque Marseillaise

The contest attracts 50,000 spectators the first day, and nearly 150,000 during the whole competition. Petanque play proceeds on the first day all throughout the City, in twenty-five prepared sites and concludes with the final which takes place deep into night at le Vieux-Port in Borély Park.

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This park, usually reserved for joggers or family walks, is transformed into a gigantic picnic, in a true theatre of passion where all moods and all the emotions meet.

<>Last year, 80 French departments which were represented along with 19 different nations: Algeria, Germany, Arménie, Belgium, Canada, China, the Comoros, Egypt, Spain, the United States, Guinea, Italy, Madagascar, Morocco, Portugal, Switzerland, Taiwan, Tunisia, Ukraine.

This year the players will undoubtedly be even more numerous and widespread with their common language being Petanque.

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This contest of boules was created in 1962 on an idea of Paul Ricard who had requested his newspaper friends (of the “Marseillaise”) combine their talents and launch Marseilles as a popular sporting center. The Southern French who invented petanque were quickly attracted to the idea and thus the first edition of this competition brought together 1,164 players, which was not bad for 1962. After a while the annual competition did not cease to grow, gaining street-cred on the national level, and eventually, with the world. <>

Along with the possibility of winning 150,000 Euros in prizes, all the players receive a tee-shirt, a cap, a backpack along with other Petanque swag.

Bon Chance!

Essay by Bob "The Boule Slinger" Puckett

[borrowed from Bob Puckett's excellent blog at www.BouleSlinger.com]

I’ve never had a bad day playing Petanque – “The Boule-Slinger”

I have never had a bad day playing Petanque. It doesn’t matter how the rest of the day has been, when I get to the park I can feel the day changing. I get out of my car and something happens: I am no longer mild-mannered, software-engineer Blue Hair Bob – I am something bigger; something wilder; something more old western. A Boule-Slinger!

I walk out onto the dirt, boules still in their holster, my hat on my brow. I have a perfect calm. I am at peace; I know why I am here – I play Petanque! The decomposed granite crunches slightly with each step and my boules rattle like spurs on boots as I walk up from the south. I can see other young guns approaching from the west side of the piste 100’ away. The old man and two more frenchies exit the saloon (i.e., French restaurant) on the north side. Inside I start to size things up.

Who’s here today? Oh, the newbie came back; he’s caught the bug. Poor kid, there’s no turning back now. He’s hooked. I can see it in his walk – a bit nervous, a bit hesitant, but with no way out: he knows he has to be here today, he has to see it again, he has to feel it again. Lanky Todd is here. Lanky’s been at it since he was born; got an unusual, kinda twitchy style – but accurate in a way nobody understands. The old man – he’s why I come, he’s why everyone comes. He hasn’t been at it that long, but he’s good – real good.

He’s the one that got us hooked. “Hey kid, you ever seen one of these?” And then he hands you a 2 pound steel cannonball and your hand molds to it and it feels so right and you loft it a few inches into the air and you feel the weight of it as it lands in your palm. “here, throw it like this”, he says.

Tall Frenchie and Jacque are here. Of course. I beat Tall Frenchie in a little tournament once. It was a fluke. I played well, don’t get me wrong, but it was still a fluke. Frenchie says he can’t play, but it’s a lie. After I beat him that one match, he beat everyone else on the dirt that day. It was a fluke all right. Jacque’s an inscrutable one – throws like a pro; don’t talk much – not in English, not in French. Just throws like he has a remote control in the darn things.

[INTERLUDE: we get to the area where we drop our gear and everyone shakes hands and laughs a bit and asks how we are all doing. We rib each other a little and catch up. We toss to choose teams and laugh and rib each other little more. And now, back to our program…]

Today we play triplets – 3 on 3: Me, The Old Man, and Jacque vs. Lanky, Tall Frenchie, and Columbo (Columbo’s good, better than me, not a shooter though). The Old Man says, “Me point, Jacque middle, Blue shooting.” What? Me shooting? What? He gives me a look and I don’t say a word – I’m the shooter today. Problem is, I never been the shooter. As far as I know, I can’t shoot. And point is normally for the guy who can’t shoot – he can shoot like a carnival act with special effects! No time left to fret – we start.

The Old Man takes his foot and draws a circle in the dirt, throws the pig, crouches down, takes aim, and hits the point. It’s on. Boule after boule. We’re in… they’re in…we’re in. They get one within 6” – and then it comes; they look at me – I’m supposed to step up; I’m supposed to shoot – so I step up, and I shoot. The boule flies. It hits dirt about 12” in front of its target – and then it goes straight at it. It hits – and they give me another look and I hear the clicks of boules being hit together in Boule-slinger applause. It goes on like that. I step up and take aim and miss – but my second throw hits. I step up and let fly and hit the target, come off it at an angle and hit the second target taking them both out with one shot. And each time, I see their eyes say, “tre bien. We knew you had it in you.” We win 13-0, my first Fanny. I shoot about 70% that game, but I remember what Han Solo said, “don’t get cocky kid.”

I’ve never had a bad day playing Petanque – and days don’t get much better than this.

100 Years of Petanque Celebrated in La Ciotat

On Friday, July 13th, in memory of Jules LeNoir; the 3rd Stage of the Masters de Pétanque celebrates 100 years of pétanque at it’s birthplace, in the village of Ciotat.

A commemoration of the event will begin with a re-enactment of the first petanque game on the very spot where it was conceived by Jules LeNoir.

Also on Friday, at 10:30 a.m., the young artist, Isabella will sing the anthem of the Centenary on the petanque piste of Jules LeNoir, just before a re-enactment of the first game of petanque.

For realism, Boules Cloutee (nail studded balls) will be used, by the famous trio of Quintais-Suchaud-Lacroix.

As for the 3rd stage of Masters de Pétanque, it will begin at 2:30 p.m. on the Langlois Esplanade, with a programmed final at 8:30 p.m.

Present will be Martine Pilate, the niece of Ernest Pitiot and the grand-daughter of Joseph Pitiot, of the Pitiot brothers who developed petanque after the invention of Jules LeNoir.

Happy July 4th

Happy July 4th! As I'm off from work on the 4th, I'll be enjoying the local parade in Wyandotte, BBQ-ing some hamburgers and hotdogs - AND playing petanque. I trust those of you who will be celebrating the 4th will be doing the same.

All the best to you, my petanque family.

Havanese and Petanque

It certainly seems like the Michigan and Detroit Petanque clubs have a Havanese monopoly when it comes to club mascots. Between Marley (Joe); Celia (James & Cheryl); Bentley (Eric); T'Choupi & Pepper (Jeff & Denise) - we probablyhave a good share of the Havanese for the area. And the Havanese are known for their circus antics - begging for food, chasing each other around -- sometimes grabbing the cochonnet.

Picnic and Petanque 100 - Alliance Francaise de Grosse Pointe

Brigitte D'Arpini organized the annual Alliance Francaise de Grosse Point Picnique et Petanque this past Saturday. We had quite a few folks from all over, including the French Institute of Michigan, Alliance Francaise of Detroit, and Mark Anthony from Albion college who is setting up his own club (we welcome an infusion of youth Mark - good work!).I had the honor of playing petanque with Henri, a distinguised Frenchman from Toulouse who pointed extremely well - of course! There was food aplenty, and lots of social talking and laughing. But best of all, we were able to share our time together as a type of petanque family.